exhaustedHaving got on the road early, I felt like I could take my time driving, and that allowed me a stop for breakfast at the Reno Black Bear Diner to collect another stamp in their "Passport" promotion. Unlike the Sparks location, however, the Reno BBD is off my line of travel (it's a long block north of the Peppermill on Virginia Street, for the benefit of those of you who attended Renovation) so that took a little extra time. However, I managed a shoulder of their Sunday Rush, and service was astonishingly quick, as if the breakfast I'd ordered had been started before I ordered it. Unfortunately, I did not take the time for a walk after breakfast, and the 210 blood sugar I measured when I stopped at the Donner Summit rest area showed how important it is to do so.
Weather was not a factor. It was a lovely spring day in the Sierra Nevada. Spring skiers visible on the slopes at the summit, and hills covered with California poppies after my usual coffee break at Colfax. Indeed, it was warm enough that, turning south at Sacramento, I had the air conditioning on in the minivan.
I had lots of recycling in the van, carefully segregated between stuff purchased in California ("redemption") and in Nevada ("non-redemption"). The latter aluminum cans are only good for scrap aluminum pricing because I didn't have to pay California redemption value (5 cents/container) on them. In addition, I had some old copper pipes that Lisa found under the house when she went into the crawl space to determine how difficult running new electrical lines would be. There used to be a recycling center a short walk from Fernley House, but it didn't last, and there isn't anywhere convenient to Fernley. My target today was RePlanet in Fremont, which is open 7 days and that I know accepted both types of aluminum and also scrap copper.
I told the people at RePlanet that the large bag of aluminum cans was non-redemption. They held up the cans, pointed to the legend on the lid, and said, "Why you say that?" I said, "Because I bought them all in Nevada." They looked at my rather blankly. I said, "It's against the law for me to redeem Nevada containers at California redemption rates." They still looked a little blankly at me, but they wrote out the much-lower-value redemption. I wonder if they will claim the higher rate.
Scrap copper is complicated, due to legislation aimed at reducing copper thefts like those that have led to delays on the railroad (thieves stealing signal lines). Besides me showing ID and filling out extra paperwork, they had to take a picture of me holding the scrap pipe. Furthermore, there's a three-day waiting period before they'll actually issue the payment. "You'll send me a check, right?" I asked.
"No, we only deal in cash. Come back in three days." Sigh. I would have thought the anti-theft rules would have required payment by check instead of cash, but never mind.
Well, at least by getting here on Sunday I'll be able to come back on my way out of the Bay Area this coming Friday to collect my $8. Still, I'm glad to get the scrap out from under the house and that it is going to go to waste.
With the various stops along the way, I didn't get to the hotel until after 5 PM. I got one of my usual rooms. I've spent several weeks (in spurts) living in rooms 113, 114, or 115 of the Vagabond Inn San Jose.
I've had to go week-and-week between the Bay Area and Fernley for the past month (and next two weeks) in order to mesh my schedule with various medical appointments for Lisa and me in Nevada and the Bay Area, but I plan to get back into a two-and-two-week schedule soon. This weekly commuting is really wearing. However, another plan that is about three-quarter-baked and about which I will write Real Soon Now should also help quite a bit with the wear and tear and expense of my current work-home commuting schedule.